Keto Experience

Hello! To preface my post, I have done Carnivore in the past - however was probably not extremely strict about it. I did lose weight pretty fast, but did not have the discouraging issues I experienced this go around during my strict Keto run.

I'm a big guy (6'6", average weight without dieting or excersize hovers around 290lb) , and have gained and lost a significant amount of weight a few times over my life.

At my heaviest, I was roughly 380. Garbage diet, drinking heavily, etc. Did Carnivore, dropped from 380 to around 290. Stuck around 290 for a while until a bad breakup that caused a deep depression where I stopped eating. Dropped 50 pounds pretty fast down to 240, then started working out like a maniac and tracking macros. Hovered around 240 for a while.

Entered in to a fantastic relationship, and surprisingly gained some happy weight. Over three years, slowly climbed from 240 back up to 290. For context, I am also diagnosed with GAD (Generalized anxiety disorder)

Woke up 2 weeks ago, and said enough - let's try Keto again! Immediately cut all sugar and carbs, stuck to eggs, beef, and spinach (all cooked in tallow). Supplemented with bone broth, and salt water throughout the day as needed.

For the first 4-5 days I felt great, however a bit "wired". Hard time falling asleep at night. Just wanted to go, go, go. However, anxiety was significantly reduced, ruminating thoughts were basically gone. Around day 6, I started feeling panicky at night - and eating a piece of bread seemed to solve it and calm me down.

Weighed myself after 7 days, down from 289 to 278. Still feeling good.

Day 9, pretty bad headache throughout the day. Did some research, looks like electrolyte imbalance. Grabbed some magnesium glycinate, and started eating an avocado for potassium + salt supplementation still.

Day 11, while at work, both my arms started to feel like they were tingling from the elbows down. Almost like your arm is asleep, but not as severe. It freaked me out a bit. According to chatgpt, that is indicative of electrolyte imbalance - so I rushed to the store and got an Electrolit (i know, not enough for Keto) and that seemed to slightly help the tingling. It ended up coming back, so I decided to see if carbs would help - and sure enough, a buttered piece of sourdough fixed it.

After that scenario, I decided that it bothered me enough to slowly taper off of Keto and reintroduce a small amount of carbs (roughly 100G/day) and the anxiety has returned, but I am calmer overall and haven't had the tingling return as severely. It did today (day 14), but only minorly and resolved after I ate some carbs.

I had bloodwork done 4 months ago, and had great labs. Great A1C, cholesterol, kidney markers, liver enzymes, etc. So my question is this; have other people experienced this? Is it truly just electrolyte imbalance? I enjoyed most of the effects of being in Keto (mental clarity, less anxiety, more "alert" feeling) however the tingling triggered some severe anxiety and has discouraged me from trying strict keto again.